Sunday, March 16, 2008

UK Government hypocrisy over who it allows in

I've posted the following self-explanatory letter to the Home Secretary:

Jacqui Smith MP
The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Home Office
Direct Communications Unit
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF

16 March 2008

Dear Ms Smith,

Excluding the wrong people from the UK

When the government introduced its legislation (following the Islamist terrorist bombings of London) to bar from the UK anybody responsible for fomenting or justifying terrorist violence, most sensible people assumed that the target of this ban would be the many Islamic fundamentalists who preach hatred of the West, work for the destruction of the State of Israel, and glorify suicide bombings.

But in fact it turns out that you have used the legislation to ban the very victims of terrorist incitement rather than those doing the incitement. I refer to your banning of an Israeli politician (Moshe Feiglin) who had not even applied to enter the UK, at the same time as Islamic fundamentalists are allowed in to preach their hatred and justify terrorism. In case you are not aware of it, the Israelis have been and continue to be the number one victims of Islamic terrorism, so the irony here is somewhat tragic.

In fact in the same week that you made your bizarre unilateral decision to exclude Mr Feiglin a spokesman (Ibrahim Mousawi) for the proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah was allowed in to the UK for a speaking tour. This is the organisation whose leader has vowed to kill every Jew in the world. Perhaps you can explain how Ibrahim Mousawi’s entry into the UK (even Ireland had banned him) was likely to do anything other than foment and justify terrorist violence?

But it certainly does not stop with Ibrahim Mousawi. The UK hosts many notorious Islamists who foment and justify terrorist violence in the furtherance of world-wide Islamic domination. I understand, for example, that the UK has hosted many visits by Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, vice president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a Dublin-based organisation of Muslim Brotherhood clerics. He issued a fatwa that legitimises and encourages the killing of any and all civilians in Israel. Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi's teachings go well beyond those of Feiglin. Moreover, he is a cleric who, unlike Feiglin, is specifically targeting his rulings at Muslims living in Europe. The argument for banning him, and every other member of the European Council of Fatwa and Research is surely compelling.

Then we have Abd al-Bari Atwan, the editor of the London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi. I note, for example, in his lead article last Sunday, he glorified the terrorist killing of eight teenage students in Israel, and said the celebrations in Gaza that followed symbolized the "courage of the Palestinian nation." He added that the recent violence in Gaza might "mark the countdown to Israel's destruction." Atwan has already been banned from Australia as a result of his declaration, last year, on Lebanese TV that "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight.” I trust, therefore that you will never give him the opportunity to go to Trafalgar Square again by deporting him.